


Adventuring for Ladies

by zlot



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, F/F, Mary wearing old boots, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 17:40:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zlot/pseuds/zlot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary and Lavinia, with over forty years behind them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventuring for Ladies

**Author's Note:**

> Written for oltha_heri's prompt (Lavinia/Mary - someday when we're old and worn) in the [We Could Have Had It All](http://dollsome.livejournal.com/1741464.html) ficathon.

A taxi arrives at the hotel, and the cabbie gets out. Of the back seat.

  
The driver’s door opens. “Too, too good of you,” says a crisp voice, issuing from the elegant throat of a slim, formidable older woman. “Older” seems the right word, not a terse “old,” though she won’t see sixty again. Her hair is cropped close and iron-gray, and she wears trousers and old-fashioned boots.  
  
“You can’t possibly know,” she says to the bemused cabbie, who is eyeing his adjusted mirrors mutinously, “how long it’s been since I’ve driven in a proper city.”  
  
“You didn’t,” sighs another older woman, approaching the car from beneath the hotel’s shadowy overhanging canopy. A softer, plumper person, wrapped in dusty rose, smelling grandmother-like of lavender and Earl Grey. The sun glints off her pale, flyaway hair with a reddish light.  
  
“Here you are,” says the lady in boots, ignoring the previous statement. Her voice is still brisk, but fond. She reaches out and clasps the other’s hand.  
  
“Yes, here I am. What on earth have you been doing, Mary? Your license has expired.”  
  
“That’s just what Edith said. She has a new Citroën she wouldn’t let me drive.” The thin lips twitch into a pout.  
  
“And you’ve taken it out on this poor man. I never should have taught you to drive in the first place. Thank you so much for your trouble!” she quavers sweetly, but the porter has removed the bags from the boot, and the cabbie is already pulling away, and the only audible word they can distinguish from his grumblings is “poshies.” The woman in pink giggles, despite herself, and proffers her hand again.  
  
“Come on, then. I’ve got tea ready. Let’s see if they let you through the front door in those boots.”  
  
In they go, and while Mary’s boots are eyed superciliously, they are nevertheless shown into a small parlor. Lavinia pours out, while Mary sticks her feet out in front of her in a self-satisfied way. “Can you believe they still fit?”  
  
“I can’t believe they still exist!”  
  
“You know we  _poshies_ never throw anything away. I found one of Granny’s old hats in the nursery. Izzie must play dress-up in it.”  
  
Lavinia passes Mary a cup. She extends her own foot, comfortably clad in much more conventional brown leather, to rest against Mary’s. “How were they all?”  
  
“Oh, quite well. Everyone asked after you, of course. I believe they regard you much in the manner of my tamer.”  
  
“Quite right too. Did you quarrel with Amelia?”  
  
Mary grimaces. “No, but it was a near thing. You’d think I would be used to that idiot being lady of the manor by now, but I’m afraid I will die unresigned to it, and haunt her if I go first.”  
  
“No doubt your grandmother would have done so already, if she could.”  
  
“Granny had a long list of possible hauntees. Amelia would be small fry, to her.” She smirks. “Poor Matthew. I suppose by that time he was on his third pick for a wife, and couldn’t be too choosy.”  
  
“Mary!” Lavinia protests, but in a desultory way, and Mary just grins back, shameless. “What else did you do, besides provoking the countess and trying to break into Edith’s car?”  
  
“Played with the children. Rode,” Mary says, dispassionately. “It was fine.”  
  
A prudent pause.  
  
“Not what I expected,” Mary says, briskly. “Too long away. Didn’t feel like home.”  
  
Lavinia taps her foot once or twice against the toe of Mary’s boots, sympathetically.  
  
Mary smiles a bit. “I wish you’d come down.”  
  
Lavinia drinks from her cup. “Well. Maybe next time. I must admit I find it easier to receive your family on our own turf.”  
  
Mary nods, and falls silent for a while. They finish their tea. Lavinia considers reaching for her knitting, but instead rises and moves to the sofa where Mary sits.

Mary takes Lavinia’s hand and examines it. “Still stiff?”  
  
“Not too awful. Nothing you need worry about,” she replies. She laces her fingers through Mary’s.  
  
“You’d think, after all these years,” Mary begins, and then ceases. Lavinia prods her gently with her foot. “Mm. That it would be easier, being apart.”  
  
Lavinia allows a tiny grin to creep onto her face. “Couldn’t sleep?”  
  
“Not especially. A spare old bone like me? I need my hot-water bottle.” Mary places her other hand on top of their clasp and squeezes gently.  
  
“Even if I’d come, I hardly expect they’d have put us in the same bedroom.”  
  
“No, but I would have crept into yours, like a fiend in the night.”  
  
“ _Golly_ ,” Lavinia says.  
  
“Indeed.”  
  
Lavinia settles against Mary a little more firmly, who lets go of her hand, but only to wrap an arm around her.  
  
“May I have a car?” Mary asks, out of nowhere. Well, not out of nowhere. She asks all the time. It reminds Lavinia, frequently, of their initial driving lessons -- the bottomless, giddy feeling she'd had in her stomach as Mary stopped and started and cursed and shrieked, and Lavinia hung on for dear life.  
  
That feeling hadn't gone away even when Mary'd gotten better and stopped nearly killing them both, and that had been a clue.   
  
“My darling, you may have anything you wish,” Lavinia responds, as if by rote. She has said it many, many times.  
  
Mary’s thumb caresses her shoulder, and Lavinia enjoys the pressure, and waits. After a minute or two, Mary muses, “Best not. Don't want a lot of possessions tying us down. After all, we are going away tomorrow. ”  
  
“Yes,” says Lavinia, radiating satisfaction at the prospect.  
  
“Venice.”  
  
“Venezia!” Lavinia has been practicing.  
  
“Well, I promised you adventures,” Mary says. It was forty years ago and more, but she hasn’t forgotten it.  
  
“You did. And I shall have them. And I have had them.”  
  
“I expect putting up with me has been a kind of adventure.”  
  
Lavinia twists her head and presses a kiss into Mary’s shoulder. “My favorite.”

**Author's Note:**

> Like much of my Mary/Lavinia headcanon, this story is inspired in part by [this picture](http://zlot.tumblr.com/post/18191246346/you-see-me-rollin-up-pops-you-step-aside). Since we never actually saw this happen on the show, I like to think it was taken in the alternate universe in which this story is set, where everything is just fine and no one gets Spanish flu, ever.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [throw over your man, i say, and come](https://archiveofourown.org/works/369858) by [screamlet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet)




End file.
